


All Signs Point To Yes

by Nope



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-01
Updated: 2004-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25784488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Peeves likes to play pranks.
Relationships: Argus Filch/Peeves
Kudos: 1





	All Signs Point To Yes

It had started small. The usual tricks. "Kick me" signs on his back. Things re-ordered in his office. And then it had become more ambitious. Chalked obscenities on the walls. Suits of armour arranged in obscene positions in front of his door. Six water filled buckets on his door top. "Kiss me" signs on, in and around his door, room, walls, robes, cupboards, draws, desk and pretty much everything else. An intricate sequence of tilting floorboards and oil slicked stones that had dumped him all the way from his office into the lake.

And today...

The first clue Argus had that there was something wrong was the small 'ping' as he opened his office, like a violin string snapping. The second was a high-pitched whooshing noise. The third was every suit of armour in the corridor falling over in turn.

A rattling drew his eyes downwards before he could yell, and he watched an empty helmet roll past his feet and bump into an iron candelabrum that swayed forward. The candle flames brushed hanging oil-dipped strings, which promptly ignited. Argus, swearing, followed the burning trails around the corner fast enough to see the box of fireworks at their ends, too slow to stop the flames hitting the rockets' tails and sending them screeching off into the castle.

Careening from one carefully placed trophy shield to another, the rockets bounced away around the corridors, Filch in hurried, futile pursuit. Rockets and caretaker burst into the Great Hall together, the latter to stumble to a horrified halt in the middle of the Hall, the former to crash into the carefully positioned boxes of companion Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs.

The consequent explosion was so loud it woke portraits as far away as Trelawney's tower.

The Great Hall's tables, knocked into the air by the blast, rained down in pieces, forming a giant heart shape of debris around Argus. As the hissing wood shard rain quietened, the clank of sliding chains got louder. One rattling end flew past at impressive speed. Argus's gaze followed it up. The chandelier promptly fell down.

It was so close he felt the air rush past his face and the boom of its impact, in the exact centre of the heart, knocked him clear off his boots.

"PEEVES!" bellowed Argus, pushing himself up.

There was a high-pitched giggle, a rush of air, a brush of spectral lips against his skin, and then, spinning and crowing, Peeves whirled up and away, waving his cap as he vanished through the ceiling sky.

Rubbing at his cheek, Argus set to work clearing up, grumbling obscenities through the small grin that kept twitching at his lips.


End file.
